In the past the capitalists had an interest in keeping workers happy and motivated. If workers are not much needed then that creates a significant class divide - the "haves" and the "unwanted". I can see a bifurcation in societies as foreseen to some extent by Orwell and Huxley. As far as the technologically empowered elite of the future will be concerned, areas where ordinary people live would increasingly be thought of as like Indian reservations and the people as chattel.

Can you see the fault in the above? It is not a logical fault, the quote stands on its own and solidly. But it omits one feature of future technology. With that feature put in the big picture, the future of the world and society (short-term, likely within the next 50 years or sooner) will perhaps play out like a badly cliched, most typical Hollywood action movie.

What the poster had not considered, is the future of AI and its ability of direct communication with the human brain. Apparently, and there is theory and research going on furiously in this angle, the human brain is capable of direct communication with an apparatus that is built to understand it. It is done, says the theory, via analyzing subtle differences in the electromagnetic fields generated by the brain, and the machine, very much a helmet-shaped cover on the head, will interpret our thoughts as if they were clearly uttered communication.

But wait! That is not all!

What's also interesting, is that the helmet, for lack of a better word, comprises a very highly sophisticated electronic brain, a computer if you like, which takes the human's thought and analyzes it and comes up with a solution to the problem thought about by the human.

This will enable three-year-olds to solve second-degree differential equations, it will enable anyone to speak in a language he has not known, on the level of a native-language speaker. The helmet can make people very, very smart, way smarter than what the present world record is for IQ.

So... if the "haves", that is, the talented technologists, hide this helmet from the public, then the "unwanted" will be really just extra ballast on the developing society. However, if the general public "steals" one of these helmets, then Prometheus V. 2.0. will make another one of these helmets, while wearing the original stolen one, then the first hundred people wearing further, perhaps improved issues of the same helmet will make hundreds time a hundred more new helmets, for these people will be imbued the incredible IQ and lexical knowledge if the technological savants which they can immediately put to use, without remorse, without punishment for the old sin or crime, and which will make each one of the wearers a Steve Jobs, an Albert Einstein, an Isaac Newton, an Andrew Szemeredy, a new Janos von Neuman, an Ede Teller, etz., u.s.w.

This means... a revolution of a kind which hadn't happened before. It will be a revolution all right, because people will only accept a lifestyle of no work and all play if they are forced into it by gunpoint. It won't be the "haves" that hold the population at gunpoint to wear a helmet, but it will be the vast unwashed heathen who will need some proof that the machine works, and it will be the job of the revolutionaries to ensure this happens smoothly and without shaking up the economy too fast and too big.

Sorry, I am babbling, I am very sleepy.

But the idea is, how long and by what means can the ruling class hang on to its power, and how long and by what means the non-ruling class will take to rise to the level of the ruling class.

In fact, the only advantage of being part of the ruling class is will be a misplaced anachronistic value, which is, or was, that through much of history an elevated spot in society meant a much better chance of propagating one's own genome to manier and manier offspring. (Agoston the Strong, any medieval king, Mick Jagger, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain being male examples of these, while Katherine the Great (Yekatyerina), Ruth Wawrzyniak of Grimsby, in the twentieth century, and others being female examples.) This advantage was so strong and coveted, that even in the present age when it's meaningless, it is still a highly esteemed thing to be.

In the past the capitalists had an interest in keeping workers happy and motivated. If workers are not much needed then that creates a significant class divide - the "haves" and the "unwanted". I can see a bifurcation in societies as foreseen to some extent by Orwell and Huxley. As far as the technologically empowered elite of the future will be concerned, areas where ordinary people live would increasingly be thought of as like Indian reservations and the people as chattel.

Can you see the fault in the above? It is not a logical fault, the quote stands on its own and solidly. But it omits one feature of future technology. With that feature put in the big picture, the future of the world and society (short-term, likely within the next 50 years or sooner) will perhaps play out like a badly cliched, most typical Hollywood action movie.

What the poster had not considered, is the future of AI and its ability of direct communication with the human brain. Apparently, and there is theory and research going on furiously in this angle, the human brain is capable of direct communication with an apparatus that is built to understand it. It is done, says the theory, via analyzing subtle differences in the electromagnetic fields generated by the brain, and the machine, very much a helmet-shaped cover on the head, will interpret our thoughts as if they were clearly uttered communication.

But wait! That is not all!

What's also interesting, is that the helmet, for lack of a better word, comprises a very highly sophisticated electronic brain, a computer if you like, which takes the human's thought and analyzes it and comes up with a solution to the problem thought about by the human.

This will enable three-year-olds to solve second-degree differential equations, it will enable anyone to speak in a language he has not known, on the level of a native-language speaker. The helmet can make people very, very smart, way smarter than what the present world record is for IQ.

So... if the "haves", that is, the talented technologists, hide this helmet from the public, then the "unwanted" will be really just extra ballast on the developing society.

Basically we disagree as to the amount of trickle down likely in technology. What economists are seeing the gush upwards / trickle down ratio increasing. The result is a widening wealth gap. I expect that to be reflected in a widening technology gap too.

Greta has pointed out, in another thread, that the distinction in classes in the not-so-distant future in society will be between the technologically acute, cute, and ingenious, and those who are not. The technologically cute will be the ruling class, or "haves", and the non-haves will be the unwanted.

I took this as granted. Not from a factual, but from a logical point of view. I took this as a necessarily true starting point; as an axiom, if you wish.

After this I pointed out that EVERYONE will be a HAVE if the helmet thing works out.

The economy and the rest of the stuff I did not even touch. Maybe it's worth a look, too, a hypothetical worth of a hypothetical look, as the whole thing is hypothetical at this point.

But the crux of what I wrote was that everyone will be a "have", whoever is in possession of the thinking-enhancing helmet (as per my opening post).

Maybe this made it clearer what I wished to have said.

If not, as judged from future posts, I wash my hands, and slowly walk away from this thread, no sudden moves.

I don't necessarily take the dualistic have-have not thing as axiomatic. In the tri-part Indo-European society, each caste is essential, knows its place and is valued. That isn't to say I disagree that a terrifying globalist Post-script on the societies of control future isn't what's coming. The brain computer interface could be seen as having a part in both dystopian or also sublime futures I'd think?

I don't necessarily take the dualistic have-have not thing as axiomatic. In the tri-part Indo-European society, each caste is essential, knows its place and is valued. That isn't to say I disagree that a terrifying globalist Post-script on the societies of control future isn't what's coming. The brain computer interface could be seen as having a part in both dystopian or also sublime futures I'd think?

That's fine, Seleucus, but for THIS discussion, it is a "given". This is not negotiable. I respect your opinion, that is not a problem.